Environmental pollutants may cause adverse effects on the immune system of aquatic organisms. However, the cellular effects of pollutants on fish immune system are largely unknown. Here, we exploited the transgenic zebrafish Tg(lysC:DsRed2) larva as a preliminary screening system to evaluate the potential inflammatory effects of environmental pollutants. Tg(lysC:DsRED2) larvae aged 7-day-postfertilization (7 dpf) were treated with selected environmental chemicals for 24 h (24 h) and the number of neutrophils were quantified using both image analysis and fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). We found that the numbers of neutrophils in the Tg(lysC:DsRED2) larvae were significantly increased by most of the organic chemicals tested, including E2 (17β-estradiol), BPA (Bisphenol-A), NDEA (N-nitrosodiethylamine), 4-NP (4-Nitrophenol) and Lindane (γ-hexachlorocyclohexane). Neutrophil numbers were also increased by all the metals tested (Na2HAsO4· 7H2O, Pb(NO3)2, HgCl₂, CdCl2, CuSO₄·5H₂O, ZnSO4, and K2Cr2O7). The only exception was TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), which significantly reduced the number of neutrophils after exposure. Additionally, the transcription of genes (lyz, mpo, tnfα and il8) related to fish immune system were significantly modulated upon exposure to some of the selected chemicals such as E2, TCDD, Cu and Cd. This study revealed that representatives of major categories of environmental pollutants could cause an acute inflammatory response in zebrafish larvae as shown by alterations in the neutrophils, which may imply a common immunotoxicity mechanism for most environmental pollutants. This study has also demonstrated that Tg(lyz:DsRed2) transgenic zebrafish is an excellent tool for screening environmental chemicals with potential inflammatory effects through FACS-facilitated neutrophil counting.

环境污染物可能会对水生生物的免疫系统造成不利影响。但是，污染物对鱼类免疫系统的细胞作用在很大程度上尚不清楚。在这里，我们利用转基因的斑马鱼Tg（lysC：DsRed 2 ）幼虫作为初步筛选系统，以评估环境污染物的潜在炎症作用。Tg（lysC：DsRED2）年龄7天后受精（7 dpf ）的幼虫用选定的环境化学物质处理24 h（24 h），并使用图像分析和荧光激活细胞分选（FACS）对中性粒细胞的数量进行定量。我们发现Tg（lysC：DsRED2）中的中性粒细胞数量通过测试的大多数有机化学物质，幼虫均显着增加，包括E2（17β-雌二醇），BPA（双酚A），NDEA（N-亚硝基二乙胺），4-NP（4-硝基苯酚）和林丹（γ-六氯环己烷）。所有测试的金属（Na2HAsO4·7H2O，Pb（NO3）2，HgCl ₂，CdCl2，CuSO ₄ ·5H ₂ O，ZnSO4和K2Cr2O7）的中性粒细胞数也均增加。唯一的例外是TCDD（2,3,7,8-四氯二苯并-对-二恶英），TCDD显着减少了接触后中性粒细胞的数量。此外，基因（lyz，mpo，tnfα和il8）的转录暴露于某些选定的化学物质（例如E2，TC​​DD，Cu和Cd）后，与鱼类免疫系统相关的）被显着调节。这项研究表明，主要环境污染物的代表可能引起斑马鱼幼虫的急性炎症反应，这是由中性粒细胞的变化所表明的，这可能暗示着大多数环境污染物的共同免疫毒性机制。这项研究还证明，Tg（lyz：DsRed 2 ）转基因斑马鱼是通过FACS促进中性粒细胞计数筛选具有潜在炎症作用的环境化学物质的极佳工具。